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Why a new vaginal ring could be a game-changer in HIV prevention
Thesla Palanee-Phillips, University of the Witwatersrand The results of the two studies showing that a vaginal ring can help reduce the risk HIV infection among women is being hailed as an important HIV prevention breakthrough. Launched four years ago, the two clinical trials, known as ASPIRE and The Ring Study, set out to determine how…
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HIV ‘Test and Treat’ Strategy Can Save Lives
By Sydney Rosen, Boston University The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) continues to take a tremendous toll on human health, with 37 million people infected and 1.2 million deaths worldwide in 2014. In sub-Saharan Africa, where the HIV epidemic has been most devastating, more than 25 million people are HIV-infected, about 70 percent of the global total.…
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Photo Essay: Standing in Line for Voluntary Male Circumcision
Over the past decade there has been growing research that purports the long-held belief that Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) can drastically decrease the rates of HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, and urinary tract infections in low-and middle-income countries. In Tanzania, for example, where these photos were taken at an IntraHealth International mobile clinic, HIV can…
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Botswana Receives First White Space Telemedicine Service to Reach Rural Populations
One of the beautiful aspects of Africa is its beautiful, wide expanses. All over the continent you will be awed by how far-reaching your eyes can see especially when traveling through its spectacular countryside. But as much as it is beautiful, the size of Africa also poses a significant problem because without modern infrastructure, including the Internet, and transport…
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9 Last-Minute Virtual Valentine’s Day Gifts for Good
If you’re like many of us you may have waited until the very last-minute to buy your loved ones Valentine’s Day gifts. While you can still run out and buy a wealth of flowers, cards, and chocolates, here are nine virtual Valentines’s Day gifts you can give that also give back. Oxfam Unwrapped: Oxfam recommends giving…
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Zambians Head to the Polls: Candidates’ Stance on Health Care
This morning as most Americans were asleep Zambians headed to the polls to elect either the candidate of the ruling party, Edgar Lungu of the Patriotic Front founded in 1991 by the late President Michael Sata, or the leading opposition candidate representing the United Party for National Development, Hakainde Hichilema. Political observers say the race is close and there is…
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5 of Our Partners Who Continue to Work in Haiti #Haiti5Years
In an earlier piece today, How is Haiti Faring Five Years After the Earthquake, development and recovery effort data and details were rather pessimistic. The numbers bear out that while some overall development achievements have been met, there is still a long way to go to help Haiti fully recover. And, yet, there continues to…
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How PSI Keeps Sex Workers Safe in Haiti
By Ashley Judd, PSI Global Ambassador A woman will do whatever is needed to feed her family. In a brothel in downtown Port Au Prince, you see just that. Twenty women, all of them mothers, were clustered in the front room. The cement walls were sparsely decorated with stenciled yellow stars. With few options but…
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Exclusive Breastfeeding Rates in Kenya Still Low
By Maryanne W. Waweru, Kenyan motherhood blogger and maternal/child health journalist based in Nairobi. As Kenya joins the rest of the world in marking the World Breastfeeding Week, health experts in the country are calling on more stringent efforts to be put in place that will encourage more women to exclusively breastfeed their babies. Though…
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20 Key Tweets from the #AIDS2014 Conference
Through July 25, the 2014 International AIDS Conference (IAC) conference is taking place in Melbourne, Australia. With over 14,000 delegates, including experts, religious leaders, scientists, writers, and staunch HIV/AIDS advocates in attendance, the #AIDS2014 conference in the yearly gathering of the minds who stand on the global forefront of the HIV/AIDS conversation. In light of last…
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Momina’s Story: International HIV/AIDS Alliance #WAD2013
Meet Momina Momina is a 22 year old single mother of two who lives in the city of Adama in central Ethiopia and was diagnosed as living with HIV three years ago. Although she wears a smile, sadness is etched across her face when she talks about her younger son, Yerosa. Born HIV positive, he…
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Living, Thriving with HIV/AIDS: A Mother’s Story
Can you imagine newly arriving to the United States from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as a happy, expecting 22-year-old newlywed to attend college and then finding out through a routine prenatal visit that you are HIV positive? This is precisely what happened to Fortunata Kasege in 1997. What turned out to be a dream of…
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Infographic of the Week: An Integrated Approach to HIV/AIDS and Family Planning Services
An integrated approach to healthcare no matter the setting is a more effective and rights-based approach to healthier outcomes. When family planning services are available at HIV/AIDS clinics, Population Action International (PAI) believes patients will receive better care, health workers will be more efficient, and dollars will be saved. In sub-Saharan Africa integrated clinic settings…
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When HIV Positive Mothers Speak: Preventing HIV in Infants
This post was originally published on the Gates Foundation’s blog, Impatient Optimists. “After I lost Nomthunzi, my life was never the same again. I cried for a long time.” Despite the grief of losing her husband and baby, Nomthunzi, to AIDS, Florence Ngobeni-Allen pressed on and became an ambassador for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation…
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Meeting Key US Players in Zambia’s National Health #ZambiaHealth
After spending nearly a week and a half in Zambia during the second half of July with nine other new media journalists we concluded our final day with an official visit to the United States Embassy in Lusaka. We met with representatives from USAID, PEPFAR, the Peace Corps, and the CDC. We also met with…
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Sanitation Wisdom from a Zambian Chief #ZambiaHealth
As you may know I am in Zambia with the International Reporting Project as a New Media fellow. Ten of us are here in the country to report on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other rarely covered stories in the region. Yesterday we visited Macha, a small Southern province town 60 miles from the nearest city,…
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Reporting from Zambia with the International Reporting Project
As I mentioned a few weeks ago I will be reporting from Zambia as an International Reporting Project Zambia Fellow starting on July 15. I will be in Africa with nine stellar new media journalists. We all have our own beats and will report on different angles about HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. I personally will…
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George W. Bush Praises Zambia’s HIV/ AIDS National Efforts
In less than a month I will join nine other new media journalists on a reporting trip to Zambia as an International Reporting Zambia Fellow. We will be charged with learning more about HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis and their affects on the Zambian citizens, report on the problems and Zambia’s national and community-led efforts to…
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A Global Update on Tuberculosis on World TB Day
Today marks World TB Day, a day that has been celebrated since 1982 to remember those who have succumbed to the disease, celebrate the achievements met to lower TB rates, and resolve to do more to treat those who have tuberculosis. According to the Stop TB Partnership 1.5 million people die every year from tuberculosis.…
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UNAIDS Hosts First Google+ Hangout
Today, UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, held their first Google+ hangout with UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibé, global ambassador for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Florence Ngobeni, and HIV/AIDS activist and singer Annie Lennox. With World AIDS Day quickly approaching on Saturday there are many conversations about HIV/AIDS and what needs to be done…